How does the backlight work on these LCDs? Is it a pair of coloured leds? I've got a backlight from a broken LCD (the backlight still works) but it looks different to the nuelectronics shield backlight, the busted one has a single anode/cathode pair of pins that are on a white bit of plastic that is the base, the nuelectronics has 2 pairs of A/K and look like they go into to little square lumps of plastic (like leds ) .

The busted one looks like an EL panel style light box, although I thought they need specific power supplies for driving them, I just connected the AK to a pair of 5v with a resistor. I don't want to destroy it as it can be used elsewhere but i would like to know about swapping out either the whole nuelectronics backlight or if it simply means replacing some leds that would be cool as I'd prefer a red backlight or maybe even break out my own RGB kind of thing for it (red for protecting night vision as bright green/blue light is a pita for astronomy).

How does the backlight work on these LCDs? Is it a pair of coloured leds? I've got a backlight from a broken LCD (the backlight still works) but it looks different to the nuelectronics shield backlight, the busted one has a single anode/cathode pair of pins that are on a white bit of plastic that is the base, the nuelectronics has 2 pairs of A/K and look like they go into to little square lumps of plastic (like leds) .

They are normally tiny surface mount LEDs on the bottom of the display with a diffuser... They are not easy to replace.

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red for protecting night vision as bright green/blue light is a pita for astronomy

Yes, red is best for astronomy... Just out of interest, what is the astronomy project? I haven't seen many around...

Hi Mowicus, This is our project: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sgl_observatory_automation/ the part of the project that I am coding/building is the dew heater control, to keep moisture off the objective (Front lens on a telescope) while we take long exposure images. the main part of the project at the moment is the focuser controller, it ties in with the astronomy software to allow us to do things like autofocus (or at least it will do when we're finished). Most of the stuff in our project has been done before, we're just pulling it together to work with newer kit and a cheap fairly robust development board platform, arduino gives us that and a basis for other projects.

There are quite a few random DIY astronomy projects and electronic mods around, some really phenominal ones (Given the technology), the best 2 or 3 are EQMod, the Philips Toucam/SPC900NC Long exposure/amp off mod and anything that involves a canon EOS DSLR (IR Filter removal and replacement, peltier cooling/coldfinger mod)

The long exposure mod is a little add on circuit that allows you to control long exposure on a philips toucam/vesta/spc9009c webcam via the serial port.

IR Filter removal on a canon (or nikon) DSLR increases the cameras sensitivity to Ha by about 5x, reducing exposure time and noise in the process. The peltier mod cools the CCD/Cmos sensor reducing amp noise to a point where its almost non-existent

Head over to http://stargazerslounge.com/ and take a look around in the equipment>>DIY section, there are quite a few mods, one guy is working on an observatory dome automation project where the opening in the observatory roof tracks the orientation of the telescope so he doesn't have to continually move the opening himself throughout the night.

I had a good look over the SPC900nc webcam mods again last night, Dived through some datasheets etc. I'd like to expand on them software wise if its possible. I originally did the 'dead bug' method which is just a switch IC that's pulled high/low by the serial port when high it stops the sensor clocking out the data.

As a method it works but its crude, you can't always grab the correct frame when you a taking the 'snapshot' so I'd like to delve a little deeper to work out the timing delays, I'd also like to try and talk to the video processor/mu/ccd Sensor directly and grab my own data and take control of the special function registers, it all looks serial/spi or i2c based until it hits the usb cable.

hi guys!I am reading articles for 2-3 days about the nokia lcd and arduino programming.I have my Nokia 3310 LCD but i can't manage to make it work...

nothing happens to the lcd when I upload the code...It never turns on.I have gt it out of a working Nokia, and it was working before...I don't know how to test if it works....the pins are connected correctly.

WHat is wrong???The lCD should write "hello world!" when i power on my arduino....I have the Duemilanove board!